LifeHorse at Grand Review Farm, an 11-year-old horse farm and boarding facility in Allenton that provides therapeutic horseback riding to special-needs children and adults, is in the middle of a dispute with Berlin Township that could shutter the program permanently.

While the farm is in St. Clair County, it caters to several counties in southeast Michigan, including Macomb and Oakland.

Waterous, 34, owner of LifeHorse along with her husband, Darin, claim they face a May 1 township-imposed verbal deadline to comply with the township ordinance regarding how many horses are allowed to be housed on the property.

The township responded to a complaint registered by a neighbor in February regarding a variety of issues, including the number of horses on the site, horses getting out of the fenced area and damaging a soybean crop, whether the facility is or needs to be handicap accessible, and a large manure pile that sits outside and behind the barn.

The complaint came three days after Waterous had purchased the property on Feb. 19, after previously leasing it.

Berlin Township Supervisor Bill Winn said that while he spoke to Waterous on the street in front of her property regarding the complaint, he never issued a May 1 deadline to comply with township ordinances. He said the matter has been turned over to the state of Michigan.

“The state will make any determination, not the township,” Winn said.

When the state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development was contacted by The Macomb Daily on Tuesday, April 16, a representative reported no formal complaint had been filed by Berlin Township, but that it did have a voice mail left by the township supervisor that day.

The call was placed a short time after he had been contacted by The Macomb Daily. On Thursday, April 18, the state reported it had received a formal complaint from Berlin Township and that a letter was sent to LifeHorse regarding the complaint. The state representative said “odor and animals at-large” were topics that would be investigated.

Waterous contends horses have been housed on the property for 40 years, her horses for almost four years (LifeHorse was started in a different location), and that her facility, while in non-compliance, should be grandfathered in since the ordinance went into effect sometime after it became a horse barn and she believes even after she began conducting business there.

Waterous purchased the property from John and Jane St. John, who ran multiple horse-based businesses out of the facility and at times had more than 30 horses on the property. Waterous says the township won’t tell her when the ordinance was written.

Winn said the ordinance was adopted “back in the 1980s” and that he doesn’t believe the property should be grandfathered regarding its compliance with the ordinance. When asked why the farm shouldn’t receive grandfather consideration, Winn replied, “Because I said so.”

“When an ordinance is enacted in the township, everyone who is already there in an existing situation is not supposed to stoop to the ordinance,” Waterous said. “As long as the horses don’t vacate the property, you are legally okay.”

Both Waterous and the township agree on one thing: This issue only came to a head because of a complaint raised by a resident.

“I applaud her for what she is doing with autistic kids, but ultimately neighbors have to get along,” Winn added.

At various times, the farm has housed more than 30 horses, and currently there are 24 on the premises, which Waterous said is legally considered to be 20 acres. The township contends there are only 18 acres.

According to the Berlin Township zoning ordinance, Section 1229, “Keeping of Hoofed Animals and the Like,” the maximum number of hoofed animals allowed is “one animal for the first five acres of property. One additional animal shall be permitted for each whole acre above and beyond the initial five acres.”

That means, according to the ordinance, the farm would only be allowed to house a maximum of 15 horses according to Waterous, or 14 according to the township.

Such a number, Waterous said, would force her to close down. While the farm does receive various grants and donations, income brought in from boarding horses ultimately keeps the farm afloat, she said.

“The first ones to go would be the boarders. And without the financial income from the boarders, I can’t support the program. We have horses retired from the program. I’m not going to just dump them. We have babies that we’re raising to be the next generation, and you have the horses that are currently working. What gives?” she said.

“I’m not going to part with horses. They are the heart of this program. You can’t run this program without quality horses,” Waterous added. “To be able to open this up to these kids, I can’t walk away from them. It’s not fair to them. They’ve been through enough in their lives. Many are emotionally impaired. They don’t know how to handle this.”

According to the LifeHorse website, riding a horse provides a variety of benefits for special needs children, both physical and psychological, as well as breaking down barriers to better learning and social interaction. Sensory and neurological interaction with the horses, their calm manner and their gait all contribute to successfully altering the status of special needs kids.

Monica Bihar-Natzke, of Chesterfield Township, has had two kids in the program for more than two years, both suffering from Asperger Syndrome, a highly functional form of autism.

The benefits for her kids, Romina, 10, and Daniel, 9, both in third grade, have been across the board. Socially, they interact better at family functions and playmate play dates. They are calmer, and focus better and do better in school.

“There’s been a drastic change. It’s actually pretty impressive,” she said. “You can see week to week when they don’t come. You can see the behavior begin to escalate again. There’s just something about what they do that helps their brains. Romina does better on her spelling tests when she comes horseback riding the week before. The week she doesn’t, she does terrible.”

Bihar-Natzke had tried sensory therapy previously but it proved to be too expensive. Through fundraising and community involvement, the program is free for her children and had better results. She is nervous about the program coming to an end.

“I’m horrified. I don’t know what I would do with our family. We don’t have anything other than Medicaid. And they don’t pay for special needs therapy. When we have to pay out of pocket, it’s extremely expensive. There’s no amount of money that could cover what we get out of this program. Romina is in third grade now, but they wanted to hold her back for two years. I’m sure that without this program helping her to be calm and sit and really learn … without that, she might still be in first grade. It’s helps my kids develop mentally.”

Monica Senyk learned about LifeHorse through Skyline Camp and Retreat Center in Almont, summer camps that incorporate special needs programs into their schedule. LifeHorse provides free horses for the camp. Her son Nathan, who has autism, has since joined LifeHorse.

“Nathan’s speech has improved dramatically along with his communication skills with people at school. His friends, kids that have known him for three years, are able to understand him much better. His physical capabilities have improved dramatically,” added Senyk of Almont, whose 6-year-old son is in first grade. “Riding the horses seemed to unlock something for him that he was able to express himself so much better.”

Problems began for the farm when a neighbor, who asked not to be identified, complained that a horse or horses broke out of the fenced pasture multiple times in the last two years, ate an acre of soybeans, dropped feces in the soybeans, and rubbed up against a propane tank located on the back of his house in the middle of the night last November. He is concerned about the safety of his family, and he also questioned whether the facility has or needs handicap-accessible bathrooms to cater to its special-needs clients.

He filed a report regarding the November incident with the Michigan State Police on Nov. 24, 2012, according to its Lapeer office.

The township ordinance regarding hoofed animals goes on to say the animals shall be “afforded adequate shelter and shall be fenced. The refuse and waste resulting from the maintenance of the animals shall be controlled on the premises and shall be disposed of within a reasonable time so as to minimize hazards of health and offensive effects.”

The neighbor said that in the summer of 2012, the horses were often kept outside at night and were getting out repeatedly. The soybean incident occurred in July 2012. He said that in August 2012 a horse broke through a wooden fence and got onto his property. St. Clair County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the scene on Aug. 22, but no report was filed, according to sheriff’s department records.

“It never could have happened,” Waterous said in response to the horses breaking through the fence and trespassing on the neighbor’s property last August. She said there was only one occasion when the horses were allowed outside overnight because it was too hot inside the barn. And the horse in question was in his paddock being fed at 7 a.m. and was in the pasture at 8 a.m. She said when the fence was broken, the boards were lying inside the fence line, meaning, in her opinion, the fence was broken from outside the fence not inside the fence. “He was a 1,600-pound draft horse. Had he walked through that fence he would have had marks on him,” she said. “There were no marks on him. No horses got out, especially at night.”

Waterous added that horses don’t eat soybeans. And she said horses have gotten out of the pasture three times in three years, the first in July 2011, the second was the August 2012 incident, and the third in November 2012. In each case, she said only one horse was outside the fencing.

“Every horse we have has its own stall. Nobody’s housed in the arena, nobody’s living outside. They’re all stalled in what was built here on a permit the township allowed,” she added.

Waterous said food and water are not an issue. She said the manure pile is removed once a year, typically in May and that the ground must be firm enough to get a truck to the pile.

The neighbor said the manure pile has never been removed since Waterous has been on the property, and it is causing odor and rat problems.

The neighbor added that since he filed the February complaint with the township, the horses have consistently been kept inside the barn overnight and have not gotten out of the fenced pasture. Waterous says that since security cameras have been installed, there have been no problems.

The representative from the state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said more information on the LifeHorse farm review will be forthcoming this week.